It's always fun to find the unexpected...A toned Franklin thread
FC57Coins
Posts: 9,140 ✭
Let's face it - for the most part Franklins tone in icky shades of brown, grey, or even black. A few stunning mint set coins have toned unbelievalble colors when they resided in cardboard mintset holders covered with colored tissue paper of years. Finding attractively toned Franklins from 1959 forward is doubly hard. First, business strikes found in mint sets were now in cellophane. Secondly, mintage of Franklins in the early 60's started increasing to tremendous proportions. This meant weakly struck and mishandled coins with defects such as "milk spots". Add to this the fact that the master die was updated in 1960, causing the bell lines to not be as pronounced as in previous years, and you wind up with coins which, though flashy, would lack an enormous amount of detail on the bell. In addition, Franklins were literally melted by the truckload in the silver boom of the late 70's. Who knows how many toned and/or gem Franklins met their demise at the smelter.
Things are looking pretty bleak for our friend the "Frankie" (with apologies to Stman who is a closet Franklin collector but won't admit it). Well, every once in a while, after looking at hundreds of original rolls, you might find one or two Franklins that merit a second look. After looking at a group of original rolls, with the end pieces covered with black/grey/brown splotchy toning with fingerprints many times, I ran into the one pictured below. Not only was the coin in decent shape with no visible problems to the naked eye, the obverse was a mix of gold, blue, and red highlights combining into a very pleasing mostly purple obverse, with a blast white reverse, as every good end roll toned coin should have. It's not a knockout and it's not howl at the moon color, but anytime you find a Franklin from the 60's with nice color, you have to stop and admire it
Things are looking pretty bleak for our friend the "Frankie" (with apologies to Stman who is a closet Franklin collector but won't admit it). Well, every once in a while, after looking at hundreds of original rolls, you might find one or two Franklins that merit a second look. After looking at a group of original rolls, with the end pieces covered with black/grey/brown splotchy toning with fingerprints many times, I ran into the one pictured below. Not only was the coin in decent shape with no visible problems to the naked eye, the obverse was a mix of gold, blue, and red highlights combining into a very pleasing mostly purple obverse, with a blast white reverse, as every good end roll toned coin should have. It's not a knockout and it's not howl at the moon color, but anytime you find a Franklin from the 60's with nice color, you have to stop and admire it
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pics.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
Jade Rare Coin eBay Listings
<< <i>Frank, at great risk to my Kennedy reputation....... >>
That's OK Don - Russ collects Frankies too
Jerry
The only thing that doesn't show is a bit of green, blue, yellow, and red on the lower periphery of the reverse. Very close to FBL, too
<< <i>Nice find Frank! >>
Wow - even the established Frankie collectors are coming out tonite.
Capped Bust Half Series
Capped Bust Half Dime Series
Guro can't deliver.
and a date that is neatly toned after 1961
michael
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment